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Wednesday, October 26, 2016

'If you unite behind a man you don't believe in; it's a lie.'

For Republicans today, Trump is scarier than Goldwater. He is scarier because he resembles a double agent dreamed up by liberal screenwriters. He embodies almost every left-wing caricature of Republicans that Republicans despise.

He is a racist and a sexist — having refused to rent apartments to African-Americans, retweeted neo-Nazis, besmirched Muslims and Latinos and boastfully molested women. For years, Republicans have been frustrated by liberal sensitivity on race and gender. Comes now Trump, spewing bigotry.

He is also an unrepentant denier of reality. Do you remember that Al Franken wrote a jeremiad against conservatives called “Lies: And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them”? I imagine the book’s title offends you. Yet it now feels like a preview of a candidate who almost every day makes immediately disprovable claims.

Trump likewise plays into the liberal narrative that the radical right verges on being anti-American. He has suggested our democracy is illegitimate and advocated jail for his opponent.

Finally, Trump displays a proud meanspiritedness about others’ struggles — a meanspiritedness that Democrats have long tried to link to Republican economic policy. He mocks parents who have lost a child, people with disabilities and prisoners of war. He relishes firing people.

Trump is so distinct that he has made this election unavoidably about him. If you vote for him, you can’t pass it off as voting for Supreme Court nominees. You will be voting for Donald Trump. You will be embracing those parodies of conservatism. - David Leonhardt, New York Times, Oct. 25, 2016